Sotomayor defends her 'wise Latina woman' jibe

Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's first choice for the US Supreme Court, stoutly denied racial bias yesterday at her Senate confirmation hearing and said her oft-criticised remark about her Hispanic heritage affecting judicial decisions was a rhetorical device gone awry.

An attempted play on words "fell flat" in a speech in 2001, Ms Sotomayor said, referring to remarks in which she suggested that a "wise Latina woman" would usually reach a better conclusion than a white man.

"It was bad because it left an impression that I believed that life experiences commanded a result in a case, but that's clearly not what I do as a judge," she said.

Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, sounded unconvinced. "As a judge who has taken this oath, I am very troubled that you would repeatedly over a decade or more make statements" like the one in 2001, he said. Republicans questioned Ms Sotomayor closely, sometimes challenging her answers, on the second day of hearings.

But Democrats command a strong majority in the Senate, and there is little doubt about her eventual confirmation as the first Hispanic to sit on the high court.